Challenge of Steel

by James David Victor

  Anders slapped it to the node at his lapel and saw it flash a fast-moving green as it uploaded.

  “Sir, we are now equipped with a map of the active Challenge area for this year,” Moriarty informed him.

  “Good.” That would make things a little bit easier.

  Then came the two final things that he had really been hoping to see. One was a weapon, and the other was a medical injector. Anders seized the white and steel tube with the small caduceus seal and rammed it without thinking into his side.

  Ah… It was like someone was pushing soft cotton-ball clouds and the cool breeze of summer into his body. He could have cried with the joy of having his body returned to him once again and for all his pain to subside, leaving a rubbery sort of agitated feeling at his side, his head, and his hand.

  “All-purpose genetic activator,” Moriarty analyzed what was happening to his body. It was really a way to accelerate the body’s natural healing processes, as well as load it with all of the essential amino acids, enzymes, proteins, minerals, and nutrients he would need for a while. “You still have hairline weaknesses to your lower false ribs, as well as general overtaxed muscle and tendon groups, but you are not in danger of bodily shock,” Moriarty reported with a congratulatory tone.

  Anders grinned and picked up the last item in the case.

  “A freaking crossbow?” he said as he picked up the bulky unit, along with the packs of small, heavy metal bolts. Who under the Reach of the Throne uses a crossbow anymore?

  The answer to that question was apparently Lieutenant Anders, as there was a scrabble from nearby, and one of the other contestants appeared, already bloody and wild…

  16

  The Central Jungle

  It was Master Jid, the Secari contestant. He was easily twice the size of any other Secari that Anders had ever seen. His chitinous back plate was so big that it forced his body down into a hunkered position as he ran forward up the path. His body—made as all Secari were, of a thick exo-skeleton—was discolored and cracked with fissures running up and down its length.

  And in his pincered hands he held what looked to be a short spear with a wickedly sharp blade at the end. It was already dripping blood.

  “Drekk!” Anders held up the crossbow. “Wait!” he shouted at first. He didn’t even want to be here. He only wanted to find Dalia and go after Uskol.

  But Master Jid leaped the last few meters of the path to land on Anders’s ‘tabletop.’ He wasn’t slowing down at all—

  Anders fired.

  To watch in dismay as the small black bolt hit Master Jid just a few hands away from his eyestalks, where Anders saw it embed and vibrate with the force of the blow. It hadn’t even pierced his shell.

  “Die, human!” the creature rasped in its native mixture of bubbling and clicking, to be translated by Anders’s node. Master Jid stabbed out in a low thrust with the spear as Anders tried to roll out of the way.

  Thwack! But Master Jid had reversed his grip to smack the hardened wood across Anders’s back as he had popped up from his roll.

  He’s good. Very good, Anders realized in that instant. Jid swiped with the other, much pointier end of the blade toward the MPB officer, and it was only by luck that Anders managed to throw his stomach back to avoid being disemboweled.

  I’m too far away. Jid’s got more reach, Anders knew. With the spear, the intelligent crustacean could strike him from even a couple of meters away.

  Jid made a chittering sort of noise that Anders thought must be the Secari version of laughing as Anders bounced back again and again.

  “Sir, you’re two-point-four-seven-one meters from the edge,” Moriarty said in alarm.

  Two and a half meters. I can jump backward that much more, Anders was thinking. He waited for the spear to jab forward once, twice, as each time he dodged and hopped back just a little.

  Not too far, not too… He couldn’t afford to miscalculate.

  And then on the third jab—

  Anders dove to one side in a military-perfect combat roll. But his opponent was good—too good, in fact. Master Jid’s claw feet skidded to a halt near the edge with a spray of sand as he spun around, whirling the spear out in front of him in a complicated martial arts move.

  Anders kicked out. He had done a lot of kicking already today, he thought. It was fortunate that he still had his metal service boots on, as they hit the crab-man’s knee joint with a heavy thump.

  Master Jid’s eye stalks wavered wildly for a moment as it realized what was happening. The massive oval of its chitinous back plate was too heavy. It was being overbalanced by its own weight.

  Anders looked up, just in time to see Master Jid topple over the edge, still waving the short spear as he vanished. There was a terrible crack from below, and then silence.

  “Congratulations, sir. You’re not dead,” Moriarty informed him as Anders lay there for a moment, still taking deep breaths in shock.

  He had just killed someone. Not in cold blood—and it was nowhere even remotely near the first time that he had taken another creature’s life—but still… He hadn’t been ordered to apprehend this Secari by his superiors. Master Jid wasn’t wanted for any crimes in the Hecta or Golden Throne systems that Lieutenant Anders knew of.

  The lieutenant blinked as the situation he was in became very, very clear to him indeed. It’s kill or be killed, he thought. It’s kill or let Uskol get away with murder. And let whoever is behind all of this get away with it, too.

  Anders nodded to himself. He didn’t want to play this game, but he was a determined sort of man. If he had to play, then he would. And he would win.

  “The Challenge map indicates that there are three challenge points, each one offering different types of advantages,” Moriarty explained.

  Anders wished that he had a full HUD. A heads-up display could overlay the image on what he saw in front of him. As it was, he had to rely on Moriarty’s directions, which were, thankfully, just as good.

  “The first was Tabletop Ridge, so you have already completed that one,” Moriarty stated. Currently, the one-man and one-intelligence team had managed to find a route that led down from the semi-circle of cliffs—a gully for runoff water that was deeply overgrown with vines and more of the poisonous bushes. Anders had already been stung a number of times as he crouched a little way into the gulley, but he figured that was just a price he would have to pay.

  “And the other two?” Anders asked.

  “The nearest is due west. Lake Makha,” the simulated intelligence said out loud. “The data claims that there is a shield icon next to it.”

  “Armor, I take it.” Anders nodded. This was a regular part of the Challenge so far. Each part of the event would give the survivors more and more advantages until they faced the final challenge.

  “In between that and here is a place called the Central Jungle,” Moriarty informed him. Anders nodded as he looked over the humps of greenery that started at the base of the ridge and extended almost as far as his eyes could see. It was riven with the breaks made by rivers, and occasional rocky promontories.

  “The next challenge point is further out, north by northwest. A bunker with a sword icon,” Moriarty said went on.

  A weapon, Anders thought. He could just about see a dark gray structure right at the edge of his vision, hazy with distance. He knew that it was probably a game-changing weapon at that. Something like a laser rifle perhaps. In one of the previous challenges, it had been a fully automated shotgun that fired explosive rounds.

  And where would Uskol go next? Anders tried to bring his MPB brain to the fore. That was, after all, the whole goal of the exercise—to capture Uskol Hecatia and wring from him the names of his employers.

  Anders didn’t think for a moment that the Red Judge contestant had tried to set all of this up on his own. He had been employed for his services, he had to be.

  For one thing, Anders had been met with some pretty illegal security procedures when he had tried to infiltrate the Gen
e Seer facility. The Gene Seers were involved in this in some way—and although the Red Judge murderer probably did indeed have plenty of genetic therapies applied to his body, Anders couldn’t see a way how the vicious man could have enough clout to pull strings at one of the pillars of throne society.

  And it was too neat of an alibi, Anders frowned. Uskol Hecatia would have arrived in Hecta space just a few days ago. His travels and journeys would have all been highly scheduled, and then, by the time the investigation into the murders would have started, Uskol would already be back in the Challenge Hub.

  Someone powerful is working with him, Anders knew. Someone had helped him sneak away from wherever he was supposed to have been to commit his crime, and then secret him back to the Challenge Hub. And perhaps given him that personal holo-field to camouflage his features, the lieutenant thought.

  The Red Judges were exceptional fighters. Some of their champions were supposed to be even as vicious and as skilled as the Mondrauk.

  Anders thought about what little he knew of the Red Judge contestant. He had performed in the Challenge three times before, and he had won it twice. The Challenge wasn’t a ‘last man standing’ deal, although that could often be the case. It was the person to have the most kills by the time the sky flashed red and the Challenge was ended.

  Uskol Hecatia had delighted in killing people both with his bare hands as well as with the weapons he had gathered during his previous attempts.

  He was a man who had probably spent his entire adult life in the warrior schools of the Red Judges, Anders realized. He was committed to violence in the way that others might be committed to exercise.

  And then Anders remembered seeing his quarry standing over him, his broad chest a nest of thin white scars, and with still more in the making: thin lines of red where he had performed his pre-game ‘ritual.’

  He didn’t look like the sort of man who cared that much for armor, the lieutenant thought.

  “The bunker.” Anders narrowed his eyes at the distant horizon. “Uskol is heading for the bunker, I’m sure of it.”

  The only problem with heading straight for the bunker was that Anders had to cross the same stretch of jungle at a northward angle while all the other contestants were crossing the very same jungle west.

  “Low-range frequency vibration from your two o’clock, heading due west,” Moriarty said. As basically a piece of code, intimately embedded into Anders’s node, Moriarty had the full range of sensing apparatus that his node had. And Moriarty had none of the limitations of physical biology, meaning that it could use Anders’s node to sense even vibrations and sounds that the human ear could not.

  “How far out?” Anders froze, lifted his crossbow, and waited.

  “Hard to tell with vegetation causing such noise diffusion…” Moriarty complained. “Could be anywhere from two hundred meters to five hundred.”

  “Five hundred meters!” Anders almost coughed. That wasn’t something he was going to worry about any time soon. But he was still cautious as he picked between the trees, many of them with thorns the size of his head.

  So far on his trek through the Central Jungle, he hadn’t encountered any other living thing, neither bug nor flying creature. But the jungle was still full of noise all the same. Odd, distant creaks and groans as if it were a vast giant, waiting to rise.

  And at least one distant human scream, which had been suddenly cut short.

  “How far to the promontory?” Anders whispered as he sighted down his crossbow, scanning to his right and left as he moved. He had decided that his first point of attack would be one of the rocky outcrops in the center of the jungle, there to climb and get a better view of his surroundings. And hopefully stay out of reach of the other contestants, as well.

  “Dead ahead. You should start to see the—” Moriarty was saying, just as the jungle shook.

  “What was that!?” Andes stumbled as the ground rolled like a wave, making the undergrowth shake. He would have been thrown against the nearest spike of one of the trees had he not remembered to fall to his knees instead of letting his weight stumble, just in time.

  “Powerful seismic disturbance,” Moriarty told him, which Anders thought wasn’t really telling him anything new. “But the vibrational wave is short, indicating that it wasn’t an earthquake, but some kind of surface event…”

  The trees nearby shook once again, and this time, it was accompanied by a thunderous, growling sort of sound.

  And now, Anders could see it up ahead. A darkness between the trees, growing larger and the noise louder. The trees were being uprooted, tossed aside and fractured along with great gouts of earth…

  Something big was tearing through the jungle. And it appeared to be coming straight for him.

  “Sir, I advise a tactical redeployment,” Moriarty said quickly.

  Anders ran.

  17

  Nightfall

  Something large was coming for the lieutenant through the undergrowth. It shattered and tossed aside the trees as easily as twigs. It was gaining on him.

  Anders dared to throw a glance over his shoulder, running as quickly as he dared—

  —and he instantly went down as his foot got tangled. “Ah!” He hit the jungle floor and rolled as the roaring behind him only grew louder.

  Dammit! Anders bounced back up to his feet, but it was hard to keep his footing as the ground shook. Trees were crashing all around him, and now he could see what was causing the destruction.

  There was a large, dark shape spearing its way through the trees, straight for him. It looked dark, encrusted as it was with mud and tree-gore, but Anders thought it looked like some incredibly large monolith or pillar hurling through the jungle as if thrown by an angry god.

  “Head nine o’clock!” Moriarty said. Anders saw what he meant immediately. Cut across the thing’s path and out of the way. It was heading in a straight line. If he could get out of the radius of the thing’s effect, he might be able to survive.

  Anders lengthened his stride, feeling adrenaline course though his system. But every racing step only met with more shaking ground, with roots popping from the earth and trees shaking across his path.

  He wouldn’t make it. Not without getting hit by one of the tossed trees.

  The roar was all around him now. It would be on him in just a moment—

  I can’t go across. I can’t outrun it. Anders saw that in an instant. There was only one way left to go. Up!

  Anders turned, immediately spotting the tallest tree nearby.

  “Sir? I cannot advise this as a reliable survival possibility!” Moriarty was saying in his ear.

  “It’s my ONLY possibility!” Anders screamed as he jumped to grab the lowest branches, his boots hitting the tops of the massive thorns as he started to climb as quickly as he could.

  His side pulsed and pulled with pain once more. His hands exploded into pin-cushion waves of heat from whatever foul irritant was pregnant inside these arboreal creations. But Anders did not stop, nor did he slow, as he pulled himself higher and higher. Fifteen feet above the forest floor, twenty, twenty-five and almost thirty…

  Just as the pillar of rock exploded through the part of the jungle where his tree stood.

  Anders didn’t know if he was shouting or not as it felt like the entire world of Hecta 3 was being torn apart. He was thrown violently as he clung to his perch, his hands slipping from its grip.

  No-no-no!

  With a crack, one of the two branches he was holding onto broke completely and he was flung out on one arm, before smacking down onto a nest of foliage and woody branches. But he was still moving, not only being jostled by the other vegetation all around but also racing through the jungle.

  He realized that he was on the great obelisk that had been sent careening through the jungle. And he was quickly being covered by shattered trees.

  “Possibility of survival approximately ten percent, sir,” Moriarty said helpfully. “It has been an honor serving with you.
”

  “I’m not dead yet!” Anders shouted.

  And suddenly, he wasn’t dead. The pillar had come to a stop.

  “Incredible, sir. Do you know the chances of you surviving intact during that?”

  “One in ten, I guess…” Anders coughed, pushing his way through the heavy branches all around. He was still in the jungle and standing in the middle of a cataclysm of tree bits, on the back of a large stone obelisk that stretched far behind him. For a moment, he wondered where it had come from, and then realized he didn’t care. It was another part of the Challenge. Another challenge.

  “How far to the promontory?” Anders asked in a shaky voice as he drank two of the water tubes and ate another of the ration packs. After a moment, his blood sugar and cortisol levels started to return to somewhere near normal.

  “From my estimates, we’ve been pushed a lot further west by the pillar. We should get there by nightfall,” Moriarty said, somehow gauging the light levels and rate of decay of light in the strange skies above.

  “Nightfall. By which time, Uskol may have already reached the bunker…” Anders growled as he started to clamber between the wood and down the length of the obelisk. His plan was to follow the easier route that it had carved through the jungle.

  “Highly unlikely, sir,” Moriarty said. “The bunker would have taken a day’s trek to get there from our original positions anyway. I believe that Uskol will have reached it by dawn if he trekked through the night.”

  “And us?” Anders asked, picking up his pace as he reached the end of the obelisk. It had a square base and was easily ten feet high. Behind it was a deep rut of churned earth and roots. The edges of this ditch had been covered by debris, creating a hidden avenue.